


Fragile Opening

by jaggedwolf



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Compliant till C2E105, F/F, Late Night Conversations, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25877857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaggedwolf/pseuds/jaggedwolf
Summary: After the battle with Vokodo, Yasha asks an unexpected question of Beau.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 24
Kudos: 258





	Fragile Opening

It rains the night after they defeat Vokodo. 

It doesn’t storm. 

Long after the others have headed to bed, Yasha lingers outside. The rain-scented air fills her nose and lungs. The dirt under her boots turns to mud. Her thick braids grow heavy with water. 

Still, it doesn’t storm.

No comforting clarity of a flash or a crack, only the memory of both in her dreams. The campfire here in the main square of Vo barely holds on to life. Her grasp on herself feels about as weak. 

Skingorger lies across her lap. As she told Vokodo, she got it back. 

“Hey.” Beau appears out of nowhere to take a seat on the opposite end of the log bench. She squints at Yasha, her night-vision goggles hanging loose from her neck. “Woke up. Definitely looking forward to sleeping in my own room whenever we’re done with this island.”

“You share a room with Jester,” Yasha points out.

For a second, something shifts in Beau’s eyes. She rubs her bare arms. “At least Jes doesn’t snore.”

“The dome is very...cozy,” Yasha offers. After Obann, after the attack on Fjord, sleeping in the dome on the ship felt right, strengthened by the Stormlord’s vision as she was. She was worthy. She could protect them.

This island has other ideas. _What use is my strength if I can’t control it?_ Yasha leans back and tilts her head up. The rain runs down her face and over her shut eyelids. 

“It’s chilly out here,” says Beau. “You, uh, waiting for thunder?”

Yasha shrugs. She doesn’t think she will have another vision tonight and if there is a chill, she doesn’t feel it. 

“I know the feeling,” says Beau under her breath.

When Yasha opens her eyes again, Beau has shifted closer and is staring at Skingorger. Beau looks curious, not wary, even when considering the sword that brought her so close to death and the woman who wielded it. There is little in battle that scares Beau.

Yasha knows the question Beauregard is about to ask, and so she beats her to it with a question of her own. “Would you tell me how Molly died?” 

“What?” Beau’s hands curl up into fists. “I mean, I thought of him too. Kinda hard not to - eyes of nine, those nine red eye tattoos he had, people calling him Nonagon. But I don’t think any of that stuff was related to Lorenzo.”

Yasha blinks. She had not given Vokodo’s vision much thought, too occupied with shame and the danger of the water’s heat. 

“Aw fuck, you weren’t thinking about that at all.” Beau pushes dripping hair out of her eyes. “I’m an asshole.”

“No,” says Yasha. “If what we saw is connected to Mollymauk in any way, I would like to hear it later, but um. Maybe this part first?”

She had known as little as Molly had about his past, but she had known enough. She had known that he was her friend, capable of filling the world with as much color as her book of flowers contained, and she had known that she had failed him. 

Beau squints harder. “This isn’t like some, fucked-up punishment thing right? 

“I don’t think so.” Yasha frowns. 

“None of the possession stuff on this shitty island is your fault. Once we’re done with TravelerCon we’ll figure something out.” Beau’s voice turned from insistent to hesitant, as if she understood she couldn’t eliminate Yasha’s question. “You sure you wanna hear this?”

“I was too much of a coward to stay with Zuala to her end.” A mate for life. Yasha had not held up even that side of the bargain. Disagreement flickers across Beau’s face, but she doesn’t say anything. “And I’m pretty sure I went back and killed anyone who did see her final moments.” That gets a quirk of the mouth from Beau. “I would like to know, for Molly. If it’s okay with you.”

“Of course.”

Yasha ends up hearing the entire story of that first attempt to defeat the slavers: how they met some dwarven woman named Keg, the loss of the horses and then the final fight itself. She doesn’t know if Beau is trying to make the story easier on her, or if it is all so muddled together that Beau couldn’t tell it any other way. 

“-and then Lorenzo stabbed him in the chest with his glaive while Molly was lying there.” Beau’s arms are crossed, fingers digging into triceps. “I swung at him, but I fucking missed.”

Yasha is back in the cathedral, a storm raging in the sky as she watches herself fell Beauregard and then attack again, Skingorger piercing deep enough to strike the stone below. Beau’s shaking torso had made the handles tremble in her grip. 

She moves Skingorger off her lap, rivulets of rainwater spilling off the grooves, and leans it against the bench. 

Beau is still speaking. When she describes Molly’s final act of spitting blood into Lorenzo’s face, Yasha nods. “That is very Molly.” 

“He frickin leapt over a cart so I wouldn’t face off Lorenzo alone.” Beau stares at the dying embers of the fire. “It was a stupid plan. If Keg hadn’t humiliated herself, we might have all died. I wasn’t exactly in a surrendering mood.”

Yasha does not second-guess her own decisions after a battle. She was either strong enough or she wasn’t. She has fought enough times by Beau’s side to know that Beau never stops questioning the possibilities. 

“I would have done the same," says Yasha.

Beau inclines her head. The movement exposes more of her tattoo. There’s a tip of a triangle in green peeking out past the collar. Beau mentioned something about her tattoo and Molly, Yasha thinks, but she doesn’t remember anything more.

“Thank you,” says Yasha. It hurt to hear, but the hurt wasn’t the point. This isn’t the fighting pit again. No, this is different. _Don’t let me be a shackle_ , Zuala told her. Molly would not want to be one either.

Beau snorts, a few droplets of water flying off with the motion. “Literally the least I owe you.”

Yasha shakes her head. “I don’t think that is the direction of the debt between us.”

“That’s not…” Beau winces. “Let’s go with no debts then. Probably a less fucked up way to think about friendship or something.”

“I think I’ve heard that somewhere before,” says Yasha very solemnly, pleased when Beau smiles and understands it for the joke it is. 

“You okay?” Beau slides close, arms still crossed. 

Yasha grunts. “I would have liked to get one hit in.” 

“Yeah. That sucks.” Beau glances down at her knuckles, which are covered in half-healed blisters. “At least you didn’t get splashback? He did bite you though-never mind, this isn’t reassuring at all.”

“Your hands are still hurt.” Yasha doubted they hurt any less in the rain.

“Eh, Cad kept me upright long enough, but like, I did immediately whale on the guy again when he popped up.” Beau shrugs, yawning. “I’ll sleep it off.”

Yasha reaches out, easily covering Beau’s injured hand with her own to expend her day’s blast of healing. Beau’s hand and the arm underneath relax with the warmth. A goofy grin slips on to Beau’s face. “Dope.”

She could kiss Beau now, and Beau would kiss her back. She could drop her hand to Beau’s hip, and Beau would let herself be pulled. Yasha feels certain of it. She wants to. There is much she wants. Yet as freed as Yasha is in some ways, there are other ways she remains trapped. What she wants, most of all, is to be careful with this fragile possibility of Beau. 

Warm herself, Yasha pulls back. She has troubled Beau enough tonight. Her next question would have been a little awkward. Beau’s resistance to Obann was probably a monk thing, and Yasha had killed many monks in Zadash. Maybe even some ones Beau knew.

“I’m beat.” Beau yawns again, slouching lower. “Wake me up if there’s something to fight.”

“I will,” says Yasha, surprised Beau isn’t returning to the others.

“I bet Pumat has magical anti-possession shit we can buy” is the last thing Beau mumbles before she’s out, her sleeping breaths softer. Beau’s mind, Yasha has learned, races on till the edge of sleep. 

The rain has slowed to a drizzle. Any hope of a storm tonight is long gone. Under her heavy cloak, Yasha’s shawl is still dry. She gingerly lays it across Beau’s front so that her arms are covered. The shawl is large enough that it covers this one spot of Beau’s top, right over the sternum. It’s the spot Skingorger ripped open in that cathedral, and it’s the spot Jester casted a mending spell on in that room the three of them shared.

Skingorger goes back across her lap, handles-side closer to Beau. For right now, Yasha is herself. She’ll make the most of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta credit to eggshrimproll, any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.
> 
> As always, I can be found at jaggedwolf on tumblr and dreamwidth.


End file.
